Thursday, March 28, 2013

Mentoring Is More Than Speaking

I can only hope that when I am gone from this world that those left behind will be able to say good things about me. There will be those truthful things like she was:

Bossy

Pushy

Determined

Type A

No-Nonsense

Unpolitically correct

In Your Face

I do not candy coat things and I know that doesn't sit well with everyone, but better to tell someone the truth to their face then speak it behind their back and let the truth be twisted.

In my search to better myself and reach out to help others, I have always looked for that perfect mentor, someone who would sit and have coffee with me once a week or once a month and speak Gods word to me and over me and teach me.

My grandmother was my mentor in how to keep a home and my mom as well. My mom and dad and grandparents spoke volumes to me about work ethic, morals, etc..

I hope I am a good mentor when I sit down with my grandchildren during the evening and read to them, pray with them, show them how to cook, sew, play badminton, talk to then about our Lord and Saviour.

But I never thought about those moments as 'impact moments,' for teaching as Jesus taught until I got into the book by Carol Kent titled: 'Becoming a Woman of Influence.' Carol states these 'moments are opportunities to teach or influence that are unplanned.'

How we answer a simple question someone asks of us, how quickly we drop what we are doing to answer a question, how we reach out to open a door for someone, pay for a strangers coffee and other little things.

These are teaching moments for those watching us, but not the reason to do these things. However, I never thought of them as mentoring moments.

Mentoring also needs to be done with compassion. If we want to reach out to a woman in our church or neighborhood, we need to have compassion and compassion can only come from deep within us.

I do not always give money to those on the roadside holding signs though I have a son who is homeless and one of the reasons I don't, is my son is an alcoholic and when he is given money he buys alcohol.

However, I have purchased meals for them, umbrellas, hats, gloves and reached out to many others in need. I do this from my heart and when I feel the Holy Spirit is reaching out to me to do this. Not to show someone else, I am better than they are but to show compassion for another human being.

What I didn't think about is how we as women and Christians can reach out in little ways such as:

Delivering a meal to a family who is always on the go

Babysitting for a mom with young children so she can get away and relax for a few hours

Paying for a family who is struggling to make ends meet for that church class coming up so they can attend

Paying for a families children to attend church camp or any other class or camp

Visiting the elderly at a convalescent home and reading to them or just sitting with them

Sitting next to the family with small children on the plane and showing them you understand what it is like to travel this way as opposed to being the one giving them icy stares and asking to find another seat.

Mentoring and being compassionate cost nothing and yet, it expands beyond us, beyond our social circles and gives back in ways we may never know.

I have had an opportunity to be so mentored and blessed by the many of you who stop by this blog, life me up on a daily basis and I will never meet in person.